The court heard he had several convictions, including burglary and driving offences, dating back 15 years to when he was a youth.

Vinecombe admitted burglary of the house in St Margaret’s Road, Woodford, Plympton and aggravated vehicle taking on October 22 last year.

Jason Beal, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said the owner of the Camaro, Robert Frankow, was asleep at home with his wife and two children.

He added the first he knew that something was wrong was when police knocked on his door at 4.30am to say his car had been involved in an accident.

Mr Beal said Vinecombe had got into the home through an insecure window and taken the car keys together with a computer, mobile phones and a kitchen knife.

He added that a resident in nearby Trelawny Road was woken up by a scraping noise.

Mr Beal said she found the rear of a parked Volkswagen had been “caved in.”

The court heard that the Seat, worth only about £300, was also written off.

Mr Beal said the police found Vinecombe walking away from the Camaro in nearby Revell Park Road.

He added he was carrying the kitchen knife, but put it down when challenged by police.

Mr Beal said it was later discovered that Vinecombe had knocked a few bricks from the garden wall when driving away from the home.

Geoff Parlby, for Vinecombe, said the burglary and theft had been opportunistic.

He added he had taken a combination of alcohol and Valium.

Mr Parlby said: “He has blindly gone in and out of prison and at the grand old age of 30, he has had enough of it.”

Recorder Pawson said the burglary was particularly serious because he had been carrying a knife and children had been at home.

DISTRAUGHT Robert Frankow believes drugged-up burglar Luke Vinecombe only took his prized sports car because he wanted to get away with his vacuum cleaner.

He said: “Everything else he took, he could carry easily. But he could not walk through the estate carrying a vacuum cleaner. I don’t think he wanted the car.”

Vinecombe, on a cocktail of alcohol and Valium, did not get very far in the distinctive Camaro. He crashed into the garden wall, before hitting two other parked cars.

Mr Frankow, aged 39, said the car was written off but he recovered all of his other possessions undamaged – except for the Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Vinecombe certainly behaved in a bizarre fashion, climbing out of the front window even though he had the keys to the front door.

Alcohol and Valium together is known to make people act in strange ways.

Mr Frankow, an IT worker with Brittany Ferries, had only had the four-seater Camaro for two years. He bought it from new for between £28,000 and £29,000, had it shipped in from the United States and then adapted it for British roads.

He had spent hundreds of pounds on the car’s alloy wheels only the week before it was taken.

Mr Frankow had taken the car to shows, including one on Plymouth Hoe.

But all that ended with a knock on the door from police officers at 4.30am.

The family, including partner Joanne Flynn and their daughters, now aged seven and eight, slept through the burglary.

Mr Frankow said: “My heart just sank. I knew the car had top-notch security and the only way he could have got in was with the keys.

“I realised he had been in the house and then I noticed stuff missing. One of the officers showed me photographs he had taken of the car and I thought: ‘That’s not very good’.”

Mr Frankow said he was still “pining” for the Camaro and was still deciding whether to replace it six months later.

But he said that it could have been worse.

Mr Frankow added: “The car was my pride and joy but the first thing he picked up was a kitchen knife. It doesn’t bear thinking about if one of the girls, wondering what was going on, had come downstairs.”

He said he was happy with Vinecombe’s sentence of three and a half years.

Mr Frankow added: “At least he is inside now.”

REPLACING the Chevrolet Camaro like-for-like is no easy matter.

Mr Frankow had it shipped across the Atlantic at a cost of £800.

Unlike most Camaros, it does not have a mighty 6.2 litre engine but 3.6 litres under the bonnet.

Mr Frankow chose the less powerful version of the convertible because it was more practical to use every day.

The car, black with burnt orange stripes, had to be adapted for British roads. The red rear indicators had to be replaced with orange ones, for example.

Mr Frankow said he did not get as much insurance money as he wanted and had trouble finding a Camaro with similar low mileage.

The Camaro was launched in the mid-60s but the fifth generation of the marque looks very different.

The car has featured heavily in American motor racing and on screen in some of the Transformers movies and the Hawaii Five-O television series.

12 comments

The article said:
*Vinecombe certainly behaved in a bizarre fashion, climbing out of the front window even though he had the keys to the front door.*
Perhaps he was getting into the role of being Luke Duke?
Vinecombe is more dazy than Daisy.

in some countries they chop your fingers off for stealing a loaf of bread,-if he stole my car and done this to it i would be greeting him at the gates on his departure from prison,- and not to say thank-you!!

And, right on cue, here's another thief! This one cons you into parting with your bank details so as they can raid your account. Anyone who thinks they would be paid 12,000 dollars (?) a month for doing sod all is too stupid to have money, though.

what a dirty little scum bag!!! theres no words for idiots like him.. going into a family home how dare he!!! makes my blood boil!!! prison is far too easy for heartless idiots like him that's why these thieving scum bags will never learn!!!!